The present invention relates to probes used for bio-sensing, and more particularly to transdermal sensing probes.
This section is intended to provide a background or context to the invention disclosed below. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived, implemented or described. Therefore, unless otherwise explicitly indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section. Abbreviations that may be found in the specification and/or the drawing figures are defined below, after the detailed description section.
There are a number of probes that are used for bio-sensing. For instance, ECG probes have been implemented in the following: (a) a chest harness; (b) a heart strap, (c) a noncontact vest, (d) a chair; (e) wireless bandages; and (f) a dry chest strap. EEG probes have been implemented in the following: (g) a Neurosky single channel headset; (h) a dry MEMS cap; (i) a fingered dry EEG harness; (j) a dry/noncontact EEG Headband; (k) a dry active electrode; and (l) an ENOBIO wireless dry sensor. See, e.g., Y. Chi, et al. “Dry-Contact And Noncontact Biopotential Electrodes: Methodological Review”, IEEE Reviews In Biomedical Engineering, VOL. 3, 2010.
The EEG circuit design, in particular, has been well understood for decades. Dry or non-contact electrodes are desirable for comfort. However, stable contact to skin is a challenge. Also, electrode-skin noise is not well studied.
There are a number of possible improvements in this area. For instance, miniaturization of electrodes could be improved. For EEG circuits, in particular, these tend to be quite large and bulky. Similarly, headset implementations could benefit from miniaturization of the headset. Is it possible to make to make the headset “invisible”? An improvement in electrode-skin contact is desirable, as is an improvement in signal-to-noise ratio.